by Olivia Waite
Pride and envy, thought Virginia. A perfect match.
The waltz came to an end and the dancers dispersed, their pattern broken. Mr. Cave and Lady Williams walked close by Virginia and Mr. Cave’s small shoulder demon caught sight of her.
The creature went pale and scampered to Mr. Cave’s other shoulder with a hiss of fear.
Mr. Cave blinked down at Virginia in confusion. “Miss Greening,” he said with a small bow. His demon’s tail curled possessively around his neck, though Mr. Cave gave no sign that he noticed the discomfort.
Virginia curtsied and dropped her gaze down to the parquet floor. “Mr. Cave,” she murmured, acknowledging his greeting but unwilling to detain him. She was not up to the Sisyphean task of conversation, not with a fiend of Hell glowering at her with eyes like chips of coal.
After an awkward moment, Mr. Cave and Lady Williams moved away, though the latter tossed a speculative glance at Virginia over her shoulder as they left. In Mr. Cave’s carrying baritone, Virginia could just hear his explanation. “She jilted him… All but betrothed... Such a scandal...”
Virginia looked away so as not to see either pity or pleasure on Lady Williams’ face.
Another dance began.
It was still a shade too early for her mother to wish to abandon her friends and their ever-gushing fountain of gossip. Her father would be mid-gamble in some smoke-filled room where the creak of chairs and the rumble of male voices replaced the shush and rustle of ladies’ skirts.
Virginia tucked herself more firmly against the fluted marble column that sheltered her and tried to remember that patience was a virtue.
Something moved in the corner of her eye—something that wasn’t part of the symmetry of the dance.
Virginia turned to look and gasped aloud.
A new demon was walking through the crowd, tall and alone. She’d never seen a demon who wasn’t attached to a mortal victim.
She’d never seen a demon this beautiful before.
He was glorious, a living statue from a pagan temple, every line of muscle and limb designed to draw the eye and dazzle the senses. Dark, wild hair gleamed in the candlelight as he turned his head. His wings were slightly spread behind him and his tail lashed occasionally back and forth. His mouth curved in a smile that even Virginia could recognize as carnal in intent.
He was also quite splendidly naked.
Nobody else could see him and nobody ever looked at her these days, so Virginia ignored the rules of maidenly modesty and stared at every bare, green-skinned inch of him. She’d grown accustomed to nudity in the past year—demons never were clothed. But this...
This was nudity of a different caliber altogether. It was having unusual effects upon her pulse and her normally lucid reflections.
The dancing lords and ladies of the ton ignored the new demon completely while he stalked among them. He put a hand on some gentleman’s black-clothed shoulder and the gentleman pulled his dance partner a little closer than was proper. He smiled in a laughing lady’s direction and she flushed, leaning forward to grant her partner a better view down her low-cut bodice.
Lust, Virginia realized.
And now he was staring right at her.
She went still and waited to see what he would do next. Most of the demons she’d encountered were deathly afraid to approach her, but she knew she had no real defenses against them if they became inclined to violence. And this demon didn’t look afraid.
He looked...hungry. The thought made her shiver.
He saw her shiver and smiled.
And now he was walking toward her.
Breathe, Virginia, she thought, and stood as straight as she could.
He stopped mere inches away from her and cocked his head, like a falcon deciding whether it’s looking at a rival or a meal. “Hallo,” he said in a deep voice that set her thrumming like a string from one of the orchestra’s violins. “What have we here?”
“Nothing that could interest you,” Virginia replied. Her shaking hands were fortunately hidden in the folds of her skirt.
The demon chuckled and leaned closer. His wide-spread wings shut out the sound of the music and the swirl of the dancers, creating a pool of dangerous quiet on this far edge of the ballroom. His breath feathered along her ear and the side of her throat when he whispered, “That’s your first mistake. What will your second be, I wonder?”
Virginia shivered again and knew that it wasn’t from fear.
From the way his eyes raked down along her body, he knew it too. She could feel a blush spreading to pinken every inch of her skin. It would be impossible for him not to see it on her cheek or her collarbone. His glance flickered back up to meet hers. “Dance with me,” he said.
“Now?” she asked, then cursed silently. “No,” she amended. It was a battle simply to breathe regularly when she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and stroke her hands over his skin, pull his head down to hers—
Lust.
She frowned up at him. “Your demon powers won’t work on me.”
He laughed now, the sound full and delicious. “They already have.” He raised a hand and, shockingly, traced the neckline of her gown with the tips of his fingers. Her breath caught. She would have expected claws, like many other demons had, but this creature’s hands were simple and strong and masculine.
And green. She brought herself back to reality. “You misunderstand,” she said. “I mean that you cannot have my soul.”
His eyes were black, nearly pupilless, and his smile never wavered. “Did I ask for it?”
“You wouldn’t ask,” Virginia said with a flash of anger. Yes, that was good—it cleared her head and steadied her treacherously wayward fancy. “You’d just wear me down, sin by little sin, until my soul came away on its own. I’ve seen your kind do it before.”
“I’m sure you have,” he admitted. “You seem to have remarkably clear sight for a mortal. But have you felt it?” His tone was a symphony of conspiracy. “I have it on good authority that sin feels marvelous.”
Oh, she believed him. She could imagine all sorts of things he could do that would feel marvelous, innocent though she was. “You cannot have my soul,” she repeated, a talisman against temptation. “It is not allowed.”
“By whom?” he said with a smirk.
“By Lucifer, the Lord of Hell himself.” Virginia smiled as shock turned his skin the pale shade of new leaves in spring. “I had the dubious honor of meeting your master last year. He forbade my soul from ever returning to his domain, living or deceased.”
The demon regained his color and frowned down at her but didn’t retreat. He had a thunderous scowl—but Virginia was no longer frightened. This expression was authentic and personal, not practiced like the rote seduction script he’d been reciting before. “What’s your name?” he asked suspiciously.
“Virginia Greening,” she said at once. “What’s yours?”
“James Grieve,” he said, but he had turned spring-pale again. “No wonder you can see me. You’re the human who walked through Hell.”
Virginia swept him her best court curtsey, so deep her knees trembled a little on the way back up. When she lifted her eyes again, he was smiling his lust-demon’s smile at her. Her knees trembled again as he leaned forward and whispered, “You’re forbidden.”
“Then you should keep your distance, Mr. Grieve,” Virginia said sharply. She would have pushed him away, but she didn’t dare to touch him. Who knows what she would be tempted to do once her hands were on his skin?
“James,” he corrected. Still smiling, he met her gaze and slowly licked his lips. Virginia had to bite down hard on her own lips to keep from mirroring his gesture. “I’m an incubus,” he said. “We love the forbidden.”
An incubus—that certainly explained much of the difference between him and the other demons she’d grown used to seeing. She was curious in spite of herself. “I thought incubi were merely legends,” she said.
“Until tonight, I thought the sam
e of you,” he said with another of those stomach- flipping laughs of his.
Abruptly, James Grieve furled his wings and turned to press his back against the other side of the column, so they stood beside one another, regarding the dancers. When he spoke again, his tone was curious and conversational. “Would you dance with me if I were one of your fellow mortals?”
“If you were one of my fellow mortals, you would not be asking me to dance.” The demon was still too close and too attractive to be completely safe, but as he didn’t appear to be actively pursuing her any longer Virginia was able to relax slightly. The brief flutter of disappointment was a sting that would soon heal. “Nobody even talks to me much anymore. Not since my...well, journey.”
“You’re quick-witted,” said the incubus, “and sharp-tongued. No wonder lesser humans find you frightening.”
Virginia laughed. “That is very blunt, Mr. Grieve, but flattering.”
“James,” he said again and Virginia’s blush returned full force. “You have not had many compliments, then, if you think that was flattery.”
Even after all these years and a trip to Hell and back, it still hurt Virginia to think that people found her plain. “Why should I get compliments? I am not beautiful, Mr. Grieve.”
He gave her that up-and-down look again. “Aren’t you?” he said, black eyes gleaming.
Wishful thinking. “Beautiful women are not jilted publicly,” Virginia said tartly.
“Beautiful women are jilted all the time,” he retorted. “There are entire treatises yet to be written on the stupidity of mortal men.”
Virginia couldn’t help but smile at that. It was so pleasant to be able to smile when she felt like it, or speak sharply if such was warranted. This was the first conversation in a year where she didn’t have to keep her expression light and sweet and as empty as a meringue while all around her people fell headlong into damnation. How did you talk about the weather when you could see sloth pouring slumberous poison into a matron’s ear? How could you flirt when you knew that handsome lord was followed everywhere by the hunched and crook-fingered embodiment of greed? It had become easier to stay silent— and society had closed around her silence the way a tree grows around a knot in its heart.
James Grieve cocked his head again when she didn’t speak. And again he said, “Dance with me.”
Virginia was bored with fighting a battle she was destined to win anyway. He couldn’t have her soul, so there could be no danger in one dance. Except... “Won’t we be seen? You’re extraordinarily underdressed for the occasion, Mr. Grieve.”
He shrugged, which Virginia was quite intrigued to discover was a more complicated gesture on a naked body than a clothed one. “Mortals generally see only what they expect to see,” he said. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed. We will surely be overlooked, just for one waltz.”
He held out an inviting hand.
Just then, Miss Lakeland danced by on the arm of some young dandy. He was whispering and she was tittering and neither even noticed there was a naked demon standing mere inches away.
They didn’t notice Virginia, either.
I’m invisible, she thought. Though normally the idea rather depressed her, tonight there was something darkly appealing in it. Tonight there might be some benefit in being unseen.
She laid her gloved hand in the incubus’s palm. Immediately he swept her into the dance.
The ton ignored them. The surrounding demons sent wary glances their way, but Virginia found the threat suddenly easy to ignore.
Oh, she’d missed dancing. She’d forgotten the swoop of it, how the rhythm caught at her heart and the music would rise and ebb as they danced closer to then farther from the musicians. Of course it was a waltz—and of course he was holding her too close— but one could hardly expect a minion of Hell to hew to the standards of human etiquette.
Or so she told herself, rather than admit she was enjoying the closeness a little more than she ought.
He moved beautifully, gracefully and with an effortless manner she found alluring. Especially as it made all those muscles bunch and tighten beneath his skin. Unthinkingly, she brushed the tip of one kidskin-covered finger along one of the more interesting muscles in his shoulder.
The incubus sucked in a quick breath.
As close as she was, Virginia felt that breath as though it were she who’d gasped. She also felt the change come over him—the heat, the alertness, the sudden tension in his arms, pulling her even closer than before. Her head began to spin—and not from the dancing.
The incubus’s hand, which had been resting lightly at her waist, slid to the small of her back. The tiniest change, but now the heat of that hand seemed to steal up her spine and warm the blood that coursed through her veins. Her pulse felt loud in her ears, the musicians farther away than ever. She knew she was losing control, responding to the demon’s sensual powers—but the prospect no longer filled her with the desire to flee.
Oh no, there were quite a few other desires she was thinking of at the moment.
And if her soul was safe, why shouldn’t she steal a few scraps of pleasure in what had been an otherwise lonely, lackluster season?
She pushed aside the babbling voice of conscience and let herself go. Her hand on his shoulder slid up to his neck as she pressed her body against his. The gloved fingers of her other hand twined with his and the heat of his naked flesh slid through the fabric of her bodice and chemise, warming her skin, tightening her nipples. Every slight variation in rhythm created friction, until the dance became an infinitely subtle, extended caress.
The incubus was right—sin felt marvelous.
Virginia knew very well that in the grand scheme of things a waltz was a very small sin indeed. But if even the little sins felt this good, it was no wonder humanity was always stumbling over the larger ones. How did they avoid going to pieces entirely? Did one grow jaded to pleasure as one gained more experienced with sins of the flesh?
“You’re thinking very hard, Miss Greening,” said the demon. His eyes were very dark and very close—the predator was awake again.
“It’s a habit of mine,” Virginia replied, her gaze drifting down to his lips.
One corner of his beautiful mouth lifted in amusement. “Am I allowed to inquire what you are thinking about?”
“I was thinking,” she said, “about you.”
She knew he would smile fully at that but nevertheless it was satisfying to see his lips curve and his eyes flash at her words. “A novelty,” he said.
Virginia bristled at the remark. “You don’t meet many women who think?”
James Grieve stayed calm, unruffled. “I don’t meet many people who think about me. Usually the mortals I meet are thinking exclusively about themselves.”
I’m sure they are, thought Virginia and said, “Perhaps your occupation does not put you in the path of the best society.”
“And yet,” he said softly, “here you are in my arms.”
She blushed at that, still buoyed up by the dance and the music and the song of pleasure humming beneath her skin. “No wonder you find people self-centered, when you offer them such praise.”
“I don’t usually,” he replied and his voice turned sly. “Especially since my talents don’t require much in the way of conversation.” He scraped the nail of one thumb over the kidskin glove that imperfectly shielded her palm.
All the air in the room vanished and a thrill ran through her. She closed her eyes and fought for breath, searching now for the caution she’d thrown away earlier. It occurred to her that he could be dangerous after all—and that he very probably had ways of knowing how their dance had aroused her mortal senses. Mr. Grieve took advantage of her silence, leaning his head close to her ear as they continued moving in three-quarter time. “Fair warning,” he said, “that I am going to kiss you as soon as this dance is over.”
At that very moment the musicians stopped playing.
Mr. Grieve’s hand was still on her back and his
other hand still held hers. Virginia knew that if she pulled away he would let her go.
But her body was still chiming to this new and unheard music. Was there really so much harm in just one small kiss?
She looked up at him and decided to be bold. “Let’s see if you are a man of your word, Mr. Grieve,” she said.
He smiled again and bent his head and his mouth touched hers.
His kiss was as light and as gentle as the last snowflake that set off an avalanche. Virginia gasped into his mouth and tumbled headlong into pure sensation. She’d never been so aware of herself as a body before—the heart that thundered and the pulse that beat, the skin that flushed and tingled, the muscles that tensed and slackened by turns. It felt as though she could unravel at any moment, teased apart by the gentle force of his hands and the weight of her own desire. He was the only solid thing in the world, so she raised herself to her toes and pressed her mouth more firmly against his and tried to hang on through the storm. She felt the smile melt from his lips as the kiss deepened and he bit gently at her lower lip. When she gasped again in shock, he slipped his tongue into her mouth and pulled her tight against his chest. She drank him in, copying his motions, losing herself in the rhythm of lips and tongue and teeth and a sudden, rising hunger—until someone on her right bumped into them and broke the embrace.
“Oh!” said Miss Lakeland, on the arm of Mr. Cave. “Terribly sorry, Miss Greening—I didn’t see you there.” Miss Lakeland’s demoness examined Mr. Grieve with great interest as Mr. Cave’s shoulder demon hid his face in the gentleman’s flowing cravat. Virginia couldn’t help staring a little at that.
Miss Lakeland narrowed her eyes and said, “Are you quite all right, Miss Greening? You look a little flushed.”
Virginia managed a polite if hollow laugh. “It is a trifle warm in here,” she said. Off to her right, her mother was parting the crowds like a man-o’-war in an ocean of silk and satin. Miss Lakeland curtsied politely and Mr. Cave led her away. The demoness gave one last toss of her dark head and followed her prey.
Virginia turned back to Mr. Grieve, to see that his eyes were on the departing Miss Lakeland. It rankled, though she knew he’d be wasting his time if he tried to make prey of her. “Go,” she said and offered an ultimatum and a smile. “Unless you want me to introduce you to my mother.”